


only one

by cakecakecake



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Astral Projection, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Coping, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, IronStrange, It was the Only Way, Kissing, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Referenced Pepperony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 16:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18627229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakecakecake/pseuds/cakecakecake
Summary: he only wishes a simple touch could mean more.but from the way stephen is looking back at him, maybe it's enough.





	only one

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanted them to have a proper goodbye.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t happen.”

*

It's then that he knows.

Their eyes find one another's from across the field. _Is this really it?_

Strange lifts one finger. He doesn’t need to say a word.

He knows. He’s been ready for it, just in case -- but now he knows. Really knows.

_I’m not sure if I can do this._

Strange is crying. Softly, silently, but surely, he’s crying. He’s yards away, but he can tell, as if he’s closer than he actually is. And then he hears him reply.

_You will._

*

It doesn’t hurt that much.

Not as much as he thought it was going to. Maybe it’s just the shock, or maybe it’s only because he’d braced for it; adrenaline and anticipation mercifully lessening the blow. Either way, he feels fine. Odd, like this can't be right, but fine.

He blinks a few times before everything cross-fades, unrecognizable colors melting over blaring lights. There’s no tunnel, like they talk about in cartoons -- everything is a kaleidoscope. He doesn’t blink and he’s not sure if it’s because he can’t anymore or because he just wants to keep his eyes open. He wants to see, to take it in. And then he sees. And he _feels_.

And then he hears _him_.

“You did it, Tony.”

“Strange? Where are you?”

He looks around, searching until he looks down at himself, tucked into a heap of rubble, armor and body in such shambles that he barely recognizes his own face, gaunt and ghostly white.

“Doc, what is this?”

“You’re really going to ask me technical questions right now?”

Tony finally catches sight of him as he draws closer -- a glowing, opalescent figure coalesced into a comprehensible form before him. He watches as tears stream down the iridescent curve of his cheek, sparkling before falling. It's like looking through a prismatic shard. His eyes are swimming with colors he can’t name, every inch of him gleaming head-to-toe. Stephen Strange is surrounding him on all sides, yet standing feet before him all at once, and his voice comes through in an echo through the chambers of his ear.

“You said we won?” Tony’s voice trembles.

Eyes on his, like he’s the only thing he can see -- he nods. “We won. It’s over.”

“So this was it,” Tony says shakily. “Your only one in over fourteen million chances.”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor apologizes, but he shakes his head, frowning.

“Don’t, don’t do that -- I don’t blame you -- ”

Strange’s brow creases, like he almost can’t believe him, and Tony quickly sighs, shrugging, almost smirking.

“ -- well I _did_ , I can’t say I never did -- "

He half-smiles, glancing aside as Tony floats forward, closer.

“ -- but that was before, back years ago, before I understood. You didn’t create these possibilities, Doc.”

“You’re right, I didn’t,” he agrees, but then he meets his eyes, tearfully again -- he can see the knot caught in his throat. “But I wish it could have been different.”

“I chose to accept it,” Tony combats him, firm and stern, with the same bullheadedness he’d used on the dumbass flying doughnut five years ago and Strange catches himself an awkward choke of a laugh. “It was up to me, Strange, not you. It’s not your fault.”

“Still calling me that,” he says, wringing his trembling hands, and Tony lets his mouth fall open even though he doesn’t know what to say. The doctor turns away from him, but he follows.

“I hate it, you know,” is what next he tells him, somber and hoarse. Tony follows his eyes, staring down at the space between his own broken body and Stephen’s poised hands down on the earth below, completely still. A hanging moment, as they steal away time above -- so this is the astral plane. “I hate that out of every outcome, this had to be it.”

“Was everything else really that terrible?” Tony asks sheepishly, feeling childish about it, but Strange is sympathetic, and patient.

“For you? Yes.”

Tony swallows. “How.”

“Out of fourteen million, six hundred and five scenarios, do you want to know how many in which you never would have had your family?” he strains, glancing down at the rosy violet blur of Pepper Potts in her Rescue suit. Tony floats a few feet downward, fixated on her copper hair and paling face, frozen in suspended time.

“I…” he struggles, chewing on his lip. “...I have a guess.”

“I’ve watched Pepper die,” he starts to explain. “So many times. I’ve watched her move on from you, watched her pregnancies fail -- but she and Morgan are here. Only here, Tony. It was then that I knew.”

Tony doesn’t tear his gaze from his wife’s face. “So I never would have had her if....”

“If it were any other way.”

He turns around, floating closer to Stephen’s form. “And this way is really the best? For everybody?”

Lacking pride, but wholly confident, Stephen answers him with finality. “Yes.”

But Tony’s not entirely convinced. How could he be, when -- ? -- he thinks of all the people, the ones who were doomed all along -- and then he thinks of _her_.

“You really expect me to believe that?” he feels his voice quiver, reaching to clutch his shoulder to make him turn around, make him look at him -- “This was the best for everyone, _really_ everyone, even -- even for Natasha?”

Stephen grabs his wrist, opening and closing his mouth twice, maybe three times before replying, very slowly.

“I watched her sacrifice herself thirteen million sixty six thousand times and it was nearly unbearable to watch, every single time. But she wanted everyone else's happiness just as much as you. Maybe even more.”

Tony falls silent, reflecting only for a breath before curiously, morbidly inquiring, “How many...how many did I -- ?”

“You don’t really want to know that,” Stephen cuts him off, releasing his grasp to float farther away from him in frustration but of course, Tony rushes after him, lightening his tone.

“Well, since I’m about to transcend reality and become omnipotent -- that is, unless I’m not grasping this whole dying and passing on thing correctly -- I’m gonna figure it out anyway, so -- ”

He turns to face him again and resigns to answering him, deadpan. “Five million, nine hundred and sixty eight.”

“Damn,” Tony exhales, gazing off at nothing for moment -- and then he snickers, watching Strange's face for a twitch. "So close to sixty nine." He waits for break in the harsh lines of his face, to watch his throat work into a chortle, but he just rolls his eyes and groans. “ _Stark_ \-- "

“Oh, okay, I make one bad joke and then suddenly I’m Stark again?”

“Insufferable, even in death.”

“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Then he cracks a smile at last. “Touché.”

Tony floats closer to him, clasping his shoulder and Strange actually reaches back for him, trembling hands clutching his arms as he tilts his head downward. Maybe it’s all the ethereal lights or these celestial bodies, or maybe he just really looks _that_ impossibly melancholy. Wearing his sadness on his face. Tony’s smile falters.

“Can I ask you just one more thing, Stephen?” (He nods.) ( _Of course you can_.) “Are they really gonna be okay?”

A breath, a small one, and he answers in the just the way he expects him to. “Time is always shifting and changing, Tony, I can see the potential course of our future but you know I can’t promise you a thing like that.”

He sees his mouth quirk into a wry grin and he mirrors it. “Guess I’m just gonna have to keep my faith in you, huh?”

Strange swallows, visibly. His eyes soften. “I guess so,” he teases him.

“Okay then, well, listen, I need you to do something for me, then,” he starts, quiet now, even though Strange is the only soul in the world who can hear him, “you know, as a last request, a man’s dying wish or whatever -- "

“ _Tony_ \-- " he starts to warn him, but Tony won't allow it. 

“Can you stop blaming yourself?”

Brows knit tightly in an anxious line, Strange inhales sharply, shoulders stiffening. “Tony, I…”

“I didn’t tell you it wasn’t your fault to make you feel better, I told you because I meant it,” he makes sure he knows, grasping his shoulders firmly. He chews on his lip for a second, feeling tears well up as he takes a breath before going on, “I was always going to make this choice no matter _what_. You just _knew_ that I would. It’s on me, this is on me _lookatme_ \-- "

A shuddering breath racks through the sorcerer as he pulls back from Tony, eyes downcast as he moves to turn away, to rake his hands through his hair in distress, but he yanks him back by the front of his robes, pulls him close, close --

“ -- look at me, listen -- it was me. My choice. All you did was see it. You can’t stop me being me, nobody can.”

“I knew you wanted your family, more than anything else,” Stephen mutters through a strained sob, “and I still couldn’t give you a future where you had it.”

“I _did_ , I did have it,” Tony chokes out, feeling himself start to cry. “And it wasn't your future to give. All you did was play a game of astronomically complicated chess -- I could never, never blame you, Stephen.”

Tony isn’t sure what draws his palm to the sharp cut of his cheekbone. Instinct, most likely; his gut reaction when he sees someone in need of comfort is to touch them. Both of them are crying now: Strange, for his final goodbye to the man he gave up everything to save for the greater good, and himself, the man who paid him back by doing the same. Just the same. It feels right, to touch him this way, to be so close to his face that he can count _that_ many eyelashes and _that_ many different shades of blue in the pools of his irises. He doesn’t question it. He just wishes a simple touch could mean more.

But from the way Strange is looking back at him, maybe it’s enough.

“Tony, I…” He trails off, sniffling and clearing his throat.

“What, what,” he asks him in a small voice, watching his eyelashes flutter shut, like broken butterfly wings.

His voice barely comes out above a whisper. “It’s already been too long, I can’t.”

“Can’t what, Doc, c’mon, what’s -- ” Tony presses on, but his breaths are coming in shorter and his hands have found his arms again and then all he sees is the doctor’s parted lips before he’s kissed.

Gently, delicately, with timid grace and simmering passion, he is kissed. Gently, impossibly warm. And he allows himself to shut his eyes and welcome it, but before he can think to start to enjoy it, Stephen Strange pulls away with a sharp, gasping breath. Tony clears his throat.

“ _Uh_ , whoa, okay,” he starts running his mouth in only mild shock, “Okay I can’t say I didn’t like that, because I _did_ , I just uh...uh -- "

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have,” Strange apologizes, not looking at him, but Tony draws his gaze back in.

“No, it’s fine,” he insists, even though it wasn’t fine, it was more than fine, but, but -- “I just -- that was kinda outta the, uh -- little confused here, is all -- ”

“Tony...to you I’m hardly a friend, a professional courtesy at best,” he explains carefully, like he’s ashamed of what he has to say. “But after one million three thousand and fifty two futures where we...where you were my -- to me, you were…”

"Oh," he blurts out immediately, blinking quickly. "Shit. _Shit_! Wow shit uh -- " 

If he's being really honest with himself, he doesn’t know how he didn’t already see that coming -- but he’s surprised anyway. No matter how much sense it makes. He coughs again, running a hand over his face. “So I was -- in a lot of those possible happy-maybe-never-afters, you and I...we were…”

“Yeah. We were,” is all he needs to say for him to understand.

Tony inhales deeply, feeling like white-hot melted iron is sliding down his chest. “And after all that, you still....”

“It’s not about me,” Strange reminds him, lost in the reflection of himself in Tony's eyes. “It never was.”

“And you call _me_ self-sacrificial.”

Stephen chortles. “As self-sacrificial as you can be with that impossibly inflated ego -- ”

“Really, _impossibly_ inflated?” Tony pretends to be shocked. “God, how did this ever work?”

“Very well, most of the time,” isn’t the answer he expects, but it’s the one he gets, and the sorcerer looks almost dreamy as he sighs, pushing back Tony’s hair from his forehead. “Of course there were many, many times it didn’t -- but mostly. Mostly, it did. It worked.”

Tony touches his hand, palm warming the winding scars along his fingers. “You know what, I can see that. I can see it.”

“Tony, I wish I -- "

“God can you _stop_ that, stop it, shut up, you know what, I’m just gonna -- "

He cuts himself off. He grabs the other man's face and kisses him, a little too fast and a little too forceful for it to be neat, but the doctor parts from him only to receive him proper, his trembling fingers entangled in the mess of Tony’s hair. Strange -- Stephen -- kisses him back with the warmth of millions of sunrises, of shooting stars, of bursting planets, and when his tongue rolls along his teeth and his lip catches the wizard's in a bite he swears, he swears he feels the love of everyone who's ever cared about him, of Pepper, of Rhodey, Steve, Peter -- of him, of Stephen, who might know and love him in ways "hitherto un-dreamt" of. 

He doesn't want to let him go. He knows Stephen doesn't want to either, but he knows he has to. They have to. 

So Tony tries to find his voice. “It’s time, isn’t it?” 

“It’s time.” He says this, but his shaking hands are still holding his. 

“Well, I. Guess I’ll be seeing you.”

“As long as you don’t end up somewhere I can’t find you," he makes fun, alluding to something Tony can't understand yet but he will, he will. 

“You’ll find me," he says with hope, with peace in his heart, looking hard into his glimmering eyes. "I know you’ll find me, Stephen.” 

"Then I won't say goodbye," he tells him softly, finally -- finally letting go of his hands. 

Tony swallows, voice dropping to an almost inaudible whisper. He doesn't need to ask, but he does, just for good measure. 

“Watch over my family?” 

Stephen smiles.

“Always.”

*

“We’re gonna be okay," Pepper promises him, sobbing.

_I know_ , he doesn’t say. He can't. _I know_.

And for that, he’s happy.

“You can rest now.”

If he could smile, he would.

But he can’t -- so he rests. For them, and for himself.

He rests.


End file.
